Lovers is yet another film from Maruthi stable. But this time around, Maruti has played mentor for the director and makers instead of directing the film. However, he did pen the story and dialogues for it. Let’s see how the film has shaped up…

Story:
Siddu (Sumanth Ashwin) falls in love with a girl played by Tejaswi. But she gets influenced by her friend Chitra’s thoughts about male psychology and breaks up with Siddu. A few days later, Siddu falls in love with another girl, this time played by Chandini. Once again, Chandini breaks up with Siddu due to Chitra. After a few years, Siddu sees Chitra (Nandini) in a temple and falls for her. Once he realizes who Chitra is, he realizes it is next to impossible to make her fall for him. The rest of the film shows how he manages to woo Chitra and manages to stop his friends from meeting her.

Artistes’ Performances:
Sumanth Ashwin and Nandita put in complete effort to make their roles believable. But the script does not provide enough scope to test their skills.

In fact, Saptagiri makes an entry in the second half and becomes the star of the film. He makes the audience laugh with his characteristic Nellore accent. Though his comedy ends up being ‘over the top’ in most films, for now he continues to make you laugh. Many in the industry feel how Srinu Vaitla and Trivikram use Brahmanandam, Maruti puts Saptagiri to optimum use.

Sai Kumar Pampana puts in a decent performance after Ee Rojullo and Bus-stop. Tejaswi, Chandni and others are okay for their roles. MS Narayana irritates with his brief role.

Technical Excellence:
JB’s music lacks appeal and has no repeat value. Some songs pop up at wrong places and disturb the flow of the story.

Since the story has been written by Maruti, there are enough punch lines. While his films were full of double entendres in the past, this time, there aren’t many as the censor board took care to do away with most of such dialogues. Though one gets a good dose of double meaning dialogues, they have drastically come down when compared to his earlier films.

Cinematography is good.

The director shows that he has good grip over canning comedy sequences. But director Harinadh failed to make the main plot interesting by mixing feel-good romance.

Highlights:

Saptagiri comedy

Drawbacks:

Weak storyline

MS Narayana’s track

Analysis:
At one point in the film, the hero wonders… ‘Where is my prema katha chitram headed’? In fact, as you watch Lovers, you will wonder where the story is headed.

The story opens with the hero walking upto the father in a church dressed as a groom and confessing to him that he wants to murder his girlfriend. It’s only after he finishes narrating the flashback do we realize that the scene has no relevance to the story that unfolds thereafter. It has been added to merely provide the opening ‘bang’.

One is left wondering if Maruti wanted to write something else or if he was not interested in what he wrote. Whatever is his reason, the fact remains that Lovers is totally off the track.

During the first half, Maruti uses a lot of time to show the behavioural conflict between the lead pair. But by the second half, the romantic love story ends up becoming comic fare. This is visible in the way Maruti tries to fit in the character played by Saptagiri in a desperate attempt to salvage his plot.

To save it from falling flat, Maruti seems to have changed his plot and banked heavily on Saptagiri to pull his film through. He uses Saptagiri till the film reaches climax. And once Saptagiri’s character exits from the story, the film ends on a rather confusing note.

The entire track in the church is totally irrelevant. Though Maruti is known for his razor-sharp dialogues, he fails badly while handling the church father’s scene. The entire episode is totally useless, apart from acting as a trigger for the rest of the film.

Having said this, Lovers does have enough content to make it score in terms of entertainment. Sai Pampana makes you laugh in true Maruti style during the first half and Saptagiri totally takes control during the second half.

Saptagiri character enters the scene with ‘Gaganapu veedhi veedi…’ song playing in the background and plays his part as a woman-hater with perfection crooning ‘Magajaatiki aanimutyama’. Also, there is a parody of Magadheera’s scene during which Saptagiri plans to bash up 50 women. In fact, this scene is the highlight of the entire film. And if you are watching the film for entertainment, then Saptagiri episode makes it a total paisa vasool movie.

However, since the film has other major glitches, it remains an average movie. Had the director managed to retain his grip over the main plot apart from focusing on Saptagiri, Lovers would have been a good watch.

Of late, all films with good comedy track have been doing well at the box office. If that rule applies to Lovers, then it will set the cash registers ringing for the makers.

Bottomline: Passable romantic comedy

(Venkat can be reached at venkat@greatandhra.com or https://twitter.com/greatandhranews)